This in-depth article from the Dallas Observer slipped past me when it first appeared in mid-June.  At the time, the NAACP had just decided to de-select Dallas pastor Freddy Haynes as the new president of their illustrious organization.  The article suggests that Haynes’ decision to welcome the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into his pulpit might have had something to do with it.  I suspect it’s true.

Freddy Haynes is the kind of preacher you rarely find in White America.  One minute he will be denouncing racist politicians; the next minute he will ask you to turn to your neighbor and ask, “Are you saved?”

White preachers might do one or the other; never both.  The culture wars have driven a wedge straight down the middle of the white Protestant world; if you are politically and socially progressive you don’t talk about “getting saved”; if you are evangelistic you are almost certainly politically conservative. 

I first met Freddie Haynes just over a year ago when he addressed Call to Renewal’s Pentecost 2007 conference in Washington DC.  A few hours earlier, three members of Friends of Justice had led a workshop on faith-based criminal justice reform and the travails of Jena, Louisiana had been front and center.  When we talked to Rev. Haynes after his sermon he told us he had never heard of Jena but he was interested in hearing more.

The next week, Lydia Bean (our Outreach and Development director) and I had a half-hour conversation with Rev. Haynes and his Minister of Justice about Jena and our criminal justice refrom work.  As the article indicates, Friendship Baptist Church, Haynes’ congregation, eventually sent ten buses to the march on Jena.  I was asked to address an organizing meeting at the church a few weeks before the buses rolled.  My wife Nancy and I were the only white people in a packed room (that happens a lot in our line of work).

Although I have chatted with the Baptist minister on three or four occasions, we have never had anything resembling a real conversation.  The Dallas Observer article provides a whirlwind tour of Haynes’ life history (most of it news to me) and highlights his interest in criminal justice reform.  Dallas DA Craig Watkins is a prominent member of Friendship West and I have always wondered if the congregation made it possible for the maverick prosecutor to launch an all-out (and highly controversial) quest to bring justice to the victims of wrongful conviction.  The article confirms my hunch.

Please give this seven-page exploration of a complicated man your careful attention.  Thanks to preachers like Freddy Haynes the civil rights movement is finally arriving in Dallas, Texas.